Punisher & Tomb Raider: Mexican Shootout
by Poseidon Productions
Summary: Lara is in trouble as a person related to her past seeks revenge but gets unexpected help from a deadly vigilante.


_**The Punisher/Tomb Raider: Mexican Shootout**_

_**by Poseidon Productions**_

It is a hot night in Mexico City, which is in the grip of a heatwave. In the confines of a warehouse, several armed thugs are standing guard as they were ready to receive some guests for the evening. Soon the sound of a door being slammed open and two men with pistols holstered on their thighs come in, dragging in an athletic white woman by both arms.

She is wearing a blueish-green tank top, black hiking shorts, boots, and fingerless gloves. She had long dark brown hair that is tied behind her head in a ponytail. Her dark brown eyes are fierce and determined most of the time but now they are somewhat blank and determine. All over her body are bruises caused by some kind of trauma

For famous archaeologist and adventurer Lara Croft, she is having a very bad night.

She had been in Mexico for the past few weeks looking for some Aztec ruins but she had been beaten to the punch by thugs from the infamous Ortega Cartel. She was aware that it's leader Alejandro Ortega is a big player in the black market artifacts trade, selling priceless artifacts to the highest bidder. His thugs had somehow managed to find the ruins first and were looting the place of anything of value. Lara had tried to get video evidence of the crime, she would have preferred to not engage them in a shootout if she could.

However, they seemed to be waiting for her, as more men showed up to ambush her. She had managed to kill a few of her attackers but she had been overwhelmed. Lara had been shot with less than lethal ammo, meaning they wanted her alive for whatever reason.

Now Lara was here in this warehouse, most likely holding all the ill-gotten gains of the Ortega Cartel.

The two men hauled Lara to her feet and placed her on a pillar. A man behind her soon put a fiber rope around her neck and pulled the rope somewhat tight. Not tight enough to choke her but to keep her in place.

"Well well, It's nice to meet the woman who probably killed my father," Said a female voice with a strong French accent.

Lara soon saw a white woman come out of the shadows, she had sharp facial features and cold blue eyes staring right at Lara. She had black hair that ran down to her shoulders. She is wearing a black collared dress shirt and dress pants, along with black dress shoes. Lara did recognize the woman, having seen her face in pictures but never seeing meeting her in person until now.

"Lillian DuPont," Lara growled back.

A smug smile crossed the woman's face.

Lillian DuPont, daughter of the late Pierre DuPont, one of Lara's former rivals. Lara and Pierre had crossed paths back in 1996 when Lara was 23 years old. Lara had been in search of the Atlantean Scion for Jacqueline Natla, who turned out to be a member of the ancient Atlantean race. She sought out the pieces of the Scion to usher what she called "The Seventh Age." She had sent Lara to Peru to find the first piece and Pierre to Greece to find the second. Lara had been alerted to Pierre by a mercenary named Larson Conway, who tried to take her piece of the Scion from her. When Lara had infiltrated Natla Technologies, she found out Pierre's location in Greece, St. Francis' Folly.

Lara made her way to the site and after a game of cat and mouth with the freelance Pierre, Lara failed to secure the piece. Pierre managed to get there first and take the piece, the man managed to sneak up behind her and was ready to blow her brains out with a Desert Eagle. However, Lara managed to fight back and force Pierre to retreat. When he ran out of the temple, two centaur-like creatures were awakened and when Lara chased after him, Pierre threw the Scion to her, thinking the Centaurs would attack her instead of them. He was mistaken and the creatures stomped him to death before turning their attention to her.

Lillian, as far as Lara knew, had been born a year before, in 1995 to a French woman with ties to the French Mob, a client of Pierre's. She had never met her father and she only knew that Lara was likely the only person who had last seen her father alive. She soon became just like her father, a treasure hunter who sold artifacts to the highest bidder. And now she had Lara in her grasp.

"Well Mademoiselle Croft, you were probably wondering why these men managed to find those ruins and wait for you now. It was me. Also, it was me who leaked the info about those ruins for you to come to Mexico so I can look the woman who killed my father in the eye before I kill her," Lillian said to Lara.

Lara simply stared back at the French woman.

"Let's get something straight, I didn't kill your father," Lara said back to her.

A snarl of rage formed Lillian's lips, obviously not wanting to hear that. She soon walked up Lara and with her left hand, backhanded her in the face. Lara's face snapped her head to the side due to the blow.

"Do you think I'm going to believe your lies," Lillian said in anger, "You and him were hired by Natla to find pieces of the same artifacts and he ended disappearing without a trace. It stands to reason you went after him and killed him so you could claim his piece of the artifact to get his pay."

Lara let out a bitter chuckle at this woman's delusion logic. Lara knew anything she said to this woman would not be believed.

"Believe what you want to believe Lillian," Lara said, "But I'll tell you this, your father's death was his fault."

Yet again a snarl formed over Lillian's face, she then proceeded to punch Lara in the stomach. Which forced the air out of Lara's body. As Lara caught her breath, Lillian held her hand out. One of the thugs came over and handed her a 9mm CZ-75 SP1 SHADOW pistol. She did a quick brass check to see if the chamber was loaded, which it was.

"As much as I want to sit here and beat on you, mon amie," Lillian stated, "I have an appointment with Alejandro to collect my money for all that loot he's going to sell."

As Lillian brought the gun up to Lara's head, the British Archaeologist didn't beg for her life or start crying. Lara knew that something like this might happen, she had made plenty of enemies in her life. She accepted that this could happen to her. She closed her eyes and waited for the shot, she was at peace with herself.

However, fate decided something different that day.

Soon an explosion ripped through a wall close to them, the debris cut through the men close to the wall to ribbons and sending their dead bodies flying. The suddenness of the explosion made Lillian lower her weapon and look over to the newly created hole in the wall as her hired thugs got out their pistol and machine pistols.

As the dust settles, a male figure walked through the hole. When the assembled group saw the man more clearly, some of the men nearly wet themselves in fear. The man is Caucasian with short military cut style black hair and cold, determine blue eyes that would make any man cower in fear. His muscular physique shows that he has spent a considerable amount of time training his body. He is wearing a black military undershirt, combat pants, boots, elbow pads, knee pads, and fingerless gloves. He also has a black military body armor with a large white skull on it, pouches on it to hold his various ammunition. He is armed to the teeth and ready for war.

While Lillian looks on with confusion on what was going on, some of the thugs recognized the man immediately and are in mortal fear of the man.

Standing in front of them is Frank Castle, the man known in North America as The Punisher. A former Marine Special Forces and Gulf War veteran turned vigilante. He had been hunting criminals ever since his family died in a Mafia shootout that his family had died in the crossfire.

He had come down to Mexico to put the screws to the drug cartels and when he heard that Alejandro Ortega had arranged for a VIP to be taken to a client of his, he made it his mission to see what this was about. He had watched them bring the woman in and saw the two vicious blows the other woman gave her. Despite not knowing who the tied up woman was, he wasn't about to watch her brains get blown out of her skull, so he decided to intervene by creating an entrance for himself with some C4.

Soon the silence was broken when one of the thugs spoke up in fear.

"¡Mierda! ¡Es El Castigador!"

Frank raises two M4A1 Carbines fitted with one hundred round C-Beta Mags into position.

"Catch you fucker at a bad time?" Frank said.

A bunch of the thugs charged at the Punisher with their weapons drawn but the vigilante opened up with the carbines, lighting up his targets with lead. Their bodies are torn up by the bullets, blood flying everywhere and limbs being torn off.

Meanwhile the man who had Lara in the chokehold with the rope reached down for his pistol for self-protection, however, this loosed the rope enough for Lara to feel it. With quickness and strength that didn't seem real, she took her hand and ripped the rope off her neck. Lillian who had been watching the carnage unfold seem the flurry of movement in the corner of her eye. She turned to bring her gun to bear. However, Lara was faster.

Just as Lillian was applying pressure on the trigger, Lara sidestepped and grabbed her wrist in one motion. She moved the Frenchwoman's hand ever so slightly and when the CZ-75 SP1 went off, the man who had Lara tied up was shot in the chest as he tried to shoot Lara.

Before Lillian could react to what had just happened, Lara backhanded her in the face. The blow sent Lillian stumbling backward, dropping her pistol. Lara did a combat roll to scoop up the pistol just as she heard a shout in Spanish behind her. She turned to see two more Hispanic thugs come at her with a pistol, She raised her newly-acquired pistol and double-tapped each of them with shots to the heart. Lara soon ran up to the dead thugs and took a Beretta 92F from one of them. Despite her wanting to deal with Lillian DuPont, Lara had more dangerous people to deal with.

Frank in the meantime had dealt with those who chose to rush him but some had managed to get into cover and opened up on him with SMG fire from Uzis and MAC-10's. Frank is strafing them with fire with the M4A1's, trying to keep them pinned down so he could get into cover. Soon his carbines clicked dry and he threw them down, having not bringing any extra ammo for them. He dives into cover behind some crates as the thug begins to fire on his position. Frank unslung his Saiga-12 semi-auto shotgun with a 30 round drum magazine filled with armor-piercing slugs.

As the thugs drained their ammo blinding firing at him, Frank rose up and fired at the men in cover. The slugs went straight through the cover and began hitting the men behind it. The slugs made mincemeat of these men, creating large wounds that are instantly fatal or mortally fatal.

Unbeknownst to Frank, a few men had managed to get behind him and are ready to shot him from behind but are shot up with pistol fire from Lara, who ambushed them from the side. Frank whirled around to see what had happened and noticed Lara run-up to their corpses, throw her pistols away and grab an MP9 SMG from one of the thugs. Without saying a word the two of them soon got back to back, waiting for anybody to come after them.

However everything seemed deathly silent, either they killed all the thugs or those who survived decided to cut their losses and got the hell out of there.

The only one to not flee or end up dead was Lillian DuPont. She hid after Lara escaped and laid low, allowing the men Alejandro Ortega gave her to be killed. She knew soon or later that Lara or the Punisher would check the place to see if they killed everyone. She noticed the hole Castle had made. She either took a chance and escape that might lead to death or sit there and wait for death to come to her.

"Nom de Dieu," Lillian cursed under her breath.

Willing herself to stand up and run, she sprinted towards the hole in the wall, hoping that if Lara was the one who notices her. Maybe she would just allow her to escape so she could "deal with her later."

Unfortunately for her, it is Frank that notices her.

As she comes into his line of sight, he quickly snaps his aim at her with his shotgun, leading his target in his iron sights. Just as he started applying pressure on the trigger, Lara's hand shifted his hand off target as he fired. The slug hitting behind her, causing Lillian to scream in terror as she managed to make it to the hole and run out of it, fleeing into the night.

Frank looks at Lara with annoyance in his eyes. Lara just stared back at him.

"She's my problem," Lara told Frank, "I'll deal with her."

Frank simply looked back at her, he could tell she was serious about this. He simply nodded and soon began to walk away from her, towards the hole he created. Lara could tell he was a man of few words. When he got to the hole, he stopped and turned to her.

"The cops will be here soon, I'll give you a ride to my safe house and then you can get patched up and go on your way," Frank said to her.

Lara nodded, she needs medical attention and she didn't want to talk to the police about this. She walks towards the hole as well.

"Thanks, mister...?" Lara began.

"Just call me Castle," He said back.

Soon the adventurer and the vigilante walks into the shadows of the city.

**END**

**Translations(Roughly):**

Mademoiselle: Miss in French

mon amie: My Friend in French

¡Mierda! ¡Es El Castigador!: Shit! It's the Punisher! In Spanish

Nom de Dieu: Jesus Christ in French


End file.
